This pandemic is a reminder that the world needs universal education

246 million children are not in school today, leaving our ability to tackle tomorrow's problems in doubt

The pandemic has dramatically changed the nature of early-childhood education. AFP

The great educational philosopher and pragmatist John Dewey once wrote:

"The very essence of civilised culture is that we…deliberately institute, in advance of the happening of various contingencies and emergencies of life, devices for detecting their approach and registering their nature, for warding off what is unfavorable or at least for protecting ourselves from its full impact…"

Here Dewey captures something that I think impinges directly on the issues of sustainability that face everyone today: an underlying presupposition of continuous change. We need to focus on resilience and coping with change (whether natural or anthropogenic) rather than living as if God or nature had given us a nice, orderly, calm existence.

We need to accept that change is our default state, and that we must learn to equip ourselves for it. It’s ever clearer now that we are facing unprecedented changes, some of which bring with them existential threats of global magnitude, and in timescales that can be measured in decades, even years, rather than millennia or centuries.

Schools are reopening in several countries, but the classroom experience is often far from 'normal'. EPA

If ever we needed to remind ourselves of this fact, the sudden eruption of the current Covid-19 pandemic on the planet has been a vivid wake-up call. Despite knowing that some sort of pandemic was likely, the global response was shockingly disjointed and unprepared, and has left vast swathes of people vulnerable and helpless. It has been a tragedy and continues to be so.

Knowing that future shocks of the same scale and magnitude are on the near horizon, it is clear that instability and change – rather than stability and settlement – is what we have to handle. To do so, we must adopt procedures, institutions and mindsets that accommodate and accept them so we approach science, epistemology, politics and ethics through the prism of these changes.

There are some obvious and critical issues that we must urgently address. Current and future pandemics, global warming, the new extinction – these all carry existential threats. Inequality is a huge and growing problem, as are the poverty and immiserating that come with it. And if we look in a more fine-grained way at these challenges, we find issues such as racial and gender inequalities pressing on us, too. In this context, education becomes an ever more important resource. We need a world educated in such a way that change is not feared or unexpected, and this raises the issue of universal access. The more of the world that receives a good education, the better our chances of dealing with the oncoming, nonstop changes that offer opportunities as well as challenges.

Today's students are tomorrow's risk-takers. AFP

The more of the world that receives an education, the better our chances of dealing with nonstop changes

So educational provision is an unassailably high priority. One big barrier to universal access to education is gender equality. As I have said many times before, gender equality and quality education are critically important for the future of our planet. Women make up half of humanity, while half of the world’s population is also under the age of 25. Yet, despite best efforts, in many developing countries, primary, secondary and tertiary education for girls remains a challenge. Currently, 264 million children are not at school, and a majority of them are girls. The world is also home to the largest generation of youth ever, with 1.8 billion young people worldwide. Nearly 90 per cent of them live in developing countries. More than 70 million youth are currently unemployed, and around 40 per cent of the world’s active youth are either jobless or living in poverty – despite working. As we all know, unemployment breeds many problems, ranging from inequality and crime to terrorism.

Here is our great opportunity. Our best schools already provide education that produces learners who are risk-takers – unafraid of change, knowledgeable, innovative, creative, analytic, literate, numerate, science-savvy, artistic, techno-enthusiastic, ethical and resilient. These are the young citizens who are becoming our future leaders. Who hasn’t been impressed by the leadership of schoolchildren like Greta Thunberg and Malala Yousafzai, the youngest ever winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, who have shown the courage, tenacity and character to pick up the gauntlet our changing global predicament is throwing down? They and others across the world are great examples of why we need to ensure that every child is given access to a good education. It is a provision that is as important and vital as good shelter, food, sanitation and safety. Everyone should see it as a non-negotiable right, the denial of which is nothing less than a scandal, and the key to a sustainable future where everyone thrives.

Ban Ki-moon is the eighth Secretary-General of the United Nations, and co-founder of the Ban Ki-moon Centre for Global Citizens. He is also the official Ambassador for GEMS World Academy Model United Nations